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     | Tuesday, April 03, 2001 - 08:54 am Now that it is clear that Tasawwuf is not contrary to the Deen, but is in fact a branch of the Shariat, its need is evident. Hadhrat Hakeemul Ummat (Rahmatullah Alayh) states in the introduction of Haqeeqat-ut Tareeqat: "After rectification of beliefs and external acts it is Fardh (compulsory) upon every Muslim to rectify his esoteric acts. Numerous Qur'aanic Aayat and innumerable Ahadeeth narration explicitly indicate the Fardhiat (compulsion) of this. However, most people of superficial understanding are neglectful of these because of their subservience to lowly desires. Who is not aware that the Qur’aan and the Ahaadith are explicit regarding the significance of zuhd, Qanaa’at, Tawaadhu', Ikhlaas, Sabr, Shukr, Hubb-e Ilahi, Radha bil qadha, Tawakkul, Tasleem, etc., while at the same time they emphasise the acquisition of these noble attributes? And, who is not aware that the Qur’aan and Ahaadith condemn the opposites of these noble qualities, viz., Hubb-e dunya, Hirs, takabbur, Riyaa, Shahwat, Ghadhab, Hasad, etc., and has warned against them? What doubt is there in the fact that the noble qualities have been commanded and the bestial traits have been prohibited? This is the actual meaning of reforming the esoteric acts. This is the primary purpose of Tareeqat. It being Fardh is undoubtedly an established fact." In Tareeq-ul Qalandar, he says: "All the authentic principles of Tasawwuf are to be found in the Qur'aan and Ahadeeth. The notion that Tasawwuf is not in the Qur’aan is erroneous. Errant Sufis as well as the superficial Ulama (Ulama-e-Khushq) entertain this notion. Both groups have misunderstood the Qur’aan and Ahaadith. The Ulamaa-e-Khushq claim that Tasawwuf is baseless since they believe that the Qur’aan and Ahaadith are devoid of it while the errant and transgressing (ghaalee) surfs assert that in the Qur’aan and Hadith are only the exoteric (Zaahiri) laws. Tasawwuf they say, is the knowledge of the Baatin (esotericism). According to them - Na’uzu Billah - there is no need for the Qur'aan and the Hadith. In short, both groups consider the Qur’aan and Hadith to be devoid of Tasawwuf. Thus in conformity with their opinion, one group has shunned Tasawwuf and the other group has shunned the Qur’aan and Hadith." http://www.islaam.org/Tasawwuf/Tasa_10.htm
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| | Wednesday, April 04, 2001 - 06:17 am bn al-'Arabi - the Sufi mystic EBN AL-'ARABI, MOHYI-al-DIN Abu 'Abd-Allah Mohammad Ta'i Hatemi (b. 17 Ramadan 560/28 July 1165; d. 22 Rabi' II 638/10 November 1240), the most influential Sufi author of later Islamic history, known to his supporters as al-Shaykh al-akbar, "the Greatest Master." Although the form "Ebn al-'Arabi," with the definite article, is found in his autographs and in the writings of his immediate followers, many later authors referred to him as 'Ebn 'Arabi', without the article, to differentiate him from Qadi Abu Bakr Ebn al-'Arabi (d. 543/1148). Life, views, terminology. He was born in Murcia in Spain, and his family moved to Seville when he was eight. He experienced an extraordinary mystical "unveiling" (kashf) or "opening" (fotuh) at about the age of fifteen; this is mentioned in his famous account of his meeting with Averroes (Addas, pp. 53-58; Chittick, 1989, pp. xiii-xiv). Only after this original divine "attraction" (jadhba) did he begin disciplined Sufi practice (soluk), perhaps at the age of twenty (Addas, p. 53; Chittick, 1989, pp. 383-84). He studied the traditional sciences, Hadith in particular, with many masters; he mentions about ninety of these in an autobiographical note (Badawi). In 597/1200 he left Spain for good, with the intention of making the hajj. The following year in Mecca he began writing his monumental al-Fotuhat al-makkiya; the title, "The Meccan Openings," alludes to the inspired nature of the book. In 601/1204 he set off from Mecca on his way to Anatolia with Majd-al-Din Eshaq, whose son Sadr-al-Din Qunawi (606-73/ 1210-74) would be his most influential disciple. After moving about for several years in the central Islamic lands, never going as far as Persia, he settled in Damascus in 620/1223. There he taught and wrote until his death. Ebn al-'Arabi was an extraordinarily prolific author. Osman Yahia counts 850 works attributed to him, of which 700 are extant and over 450 probably genuine. The second edition of the Fotuhat (Cairo, 1329/1911) covers 2,580 pages, while Yahia's new critical edition is projected to include thirty-seven volumes of about five hundred pages each (vol. 14, Cairo, 1992). By comparison, his most famous work, Fosus al-hekam (Bezels of widsom), is less than 180 pages long. Scores of his books and treatises have been published, mostly in uncritical editions; several have been translated into European languages. Although Ebn al-'Arabi claims that the Fotuhat is derived from divine "openings"ómystical unveilingsóand that the Fosus was handed to him in a vision by the Prophet, he would certainly admit that he expressed his visions in the language of his intellectual milieu. He cites the Koran and Hadith constantly; it would be no exaggeration to say that most of his works are commentaries on these two sources of the tradition. He sometimes quotes aphorisms from earlier Sufis, but never long passages. There is no evidence that he quotes without ascription, in the accepted style, from other authors. He was thoroughly familiar with the Islamic sciences, especially tafsir, feqh, and kalam. He does not seem to have studied the works of the philosophers, though many of his ideas are prefigured in the works of such authors as the Ekhwan-al-Safa' (q.v.; Rosenthal; Takeshita). He mentions on several occasions having read the Ehya' of GHazali, and he sometimes refers to such well known Sufi authors as Qoshayri. In short, Ebn al-'Arabi was firmly grounded in the mainstream of the Islamic tradition; the starting points of his discussions would have been familiar to the 'olama' in his environment. At the same time he was enormously original, and he was fully aware of the newness of what he was doing. Most earlier Sufis had spoken about theoretical issues (as opposed to practical teachings) in a brief or allusive fashion. Ebn al-'Arabi breaks the dam with a torrent of exposition on every sort of theoretical issue related to the "divine things" (elahiyat). He maintains a uniformly high level of discourse and, in spite of going over the same basic themes constantly, he offers a different perspective in each fresh look at a question. For example, in the Fosus al-hekam, each of twenty-seven chapters deals with the divine wisdom revealed to a specific divine wordóa particular prophet. In each case, the wisdom is associated with a different divine attribute. Hence, each prophet represents a different mode of knowing and experiencing the reality of God. Most of the 560 chapters of the Fotuhat are rooted in similar principles. Each chapter represents a "standpoint" or "station" (maqam) from which reality, or a specific dimension of reality, can be surveyed and brought into the overarching perspective of the "oneness of all things" (tawhid). Ebn al-'Arabi assumed and then verified through his own personal experience the validity of the re-velation that was given primarily in the Koran and secondarily in the Hadith. He objected to the limiting approaches of kalam and philosophy, which tied all understanding to reason ('aql), as well as to the approach of those Sufis who appealed only to unveiling (kashf). It may be fair to say that his major methodological contribution was to reject the stance of the kalam authorities, for whom tashbih (declaring God similar to creation) was a heresy, and to make tashbih the necessary complement of tanzih (declaring God incomparable with creation). This perspective leads to an epistemology that harmonizes reason and unveiling. For Ebn al-'Arabi, reason functions through differentiation and discernment; it knows innately that God is absent from all things (tanzih). In contrast, unveiling functions through imagination, which perceives identity and sameness rather than difference; hence unveiling sees God's presence rather than his absenceótashbih. To maintain that God is either absent or present is, in his terms, to see with only one eye. Perfect knowledge of God involves seeing with both eyes, the eye of reason and the eye of unveiling (or imagination). This is the wisdom of the prophets; it is falsified by those theologians, philosophers, and Sufis who stress either tanzih or tashbih at the expense of the other. If Ebn al-'Arabi's methodology focuses on harmonizing two modes of knowing, his actual teachings focus more on bringing out the nature of human perfection and the means to achieve it. Although the term al-ensan al-kamel "the perfect human being" can be found in earlier authors, it is Ebn al-'Arabi who makes it a central theme of Sufism. Briefly, perfect human beings are those who live up to the potential that was placed in Adam when God "taught him all the names" (Koran 2:30). These names designate every perfection found in God and the cosmos (al-'alam, defined as "everything other than God". Ultimately, the names taught to Adam are identical with the divine attributes, such as life, awareness, desire, power, speech, generosity, and justice. By actualizing the names within themselves, human beings become perfect images of God and achieve God's purpose in creating the universe (Chittick, 1989, especially chap. 20). Even though all perfect human beingsói.e., the prophets and the "friends" (awlia') of Godóare identical in one respect, each of them manifests God's uniqueness in another respect. In effect, each is dominated by one specific divine attributeóthis is the theme of the Fosus. Moreover, the path to human fulfillment is a never-ending progression whereby people come to embody God's infinite attributes successively and with ever-increasing intensity. Most of Ebn al-'Arabi's writings are devoted to explaining the nature of the knowledge that is unveiled to those who travel through the ascending stations or standpoints of human perfection. God's friends are those who inherit their knowledge, stations, and states from the prophets, the last of whom was Mohammad. When Ebn al-'Arabi claimed to be the "seal of the MoHammadan friends" (khatam al-awlia' al-mohammadiya), he was saying that no one after him would inherit fully from the prophet Mohammad. Muslim friends of God would continue to exist until the end of time, but now they would inherit from other prophets inasmuch as those prophets represent certain aspects of Mohammad's all-embracing message (Chodkiewicz, 1986). The most famous idea attributed to Ebn al-'Arabi is wahdat al-wojud "the oneness of being." Although he never employs the term, the idea is implicit throughout his writings. In the manner of both theologians and philosophers, Ebn al-'Arabi employs the term wojud to refer to God as the Necessary Being. Like them, he also attributes the term to everything other than God, but he insists that wojud does not belong to the things found in the cosmos in any real sense. Rather, the things borrow wojud from God, much as the earth borrows light from the sun. The issue is how wojud can rightfully be attributed to the things, also called "entities" (a'yan). From the perspective of tanzih, Ebn al-'Arabi declares that wojud belongs to God alone, and, in his famous phrase, the things "have never smelt a whiff of wojud." From the point of view of tashbih, he affirms that all things are wojud's self-disclosure (tajalli) or self-manifestation (zohur). In sum, all things are "He/not He" (howa la howa), which is to say that they are both God and other than God, both wojud and other than wojud. The intermediateness of everything that can be perceived by the senses or the mind brings us back to imagination, a term that Ebn al-'Arabi applies not only to a mode of understanding that grasps identity rather than difference, but also to the World of Imagination, which is situated between the two fundamental worlds that make up the cosmosóthe world of spirits and the world of bodiesóand which brings together the qualities of the two sides. In addition, Ebn al-'Arabi refers to the whole cosmos as imagination, because it combines the attributes of wojud and utter nonexistence (Chittick, 1989). Influence on Persian Sufis and Philosophers. Tracing Ebn al-'Arabi's influence in any detail must await an enormous amount of research into both his own writings and the works of later authors. Most modern scholars agree that his influence is obvious in much of the theoretical writing of later Sufism and discernible in works by theologians and philosophers. Wahdat al-wojud, invariably associated with Ebn al-'Arabi's name, is the most famous single theoretical issue in Sufi works of the later period, especially in the area under Persian cultural influence. Not everyone thought it was an appropriate concept, and scholars such as Ebn Taymiya (d. 728/1328) attacked it vehemently. In fact, Ebn Taymiya deserves much of the credit for associating this idea with Ebn al-'Arabi's name and for making it the criterion, as it were, of judging whether an author was for or against Ebn al-'Arabi (on this complex issue, see Chittick, forthcoming). Although Ebn al-'Arabi's name is typically associated with theoretical issues, this should not suggest that his influence reached only learned Sufis. He was the author of many practical works on Sufism, including collections of prayers, and he transmitted a kherqa that was worn by a number of later shaikhs of various orders. As M. Chodkiewicz (1991) has illustrated, his radiance permeated all levels of Sufi life and practice, from the most elite to the most popular, and this has continued down to modern times. Today, indeed, his influence seems to be on the increase, both in the Islamic world and in the West. The Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, which publishes a journal in Oxford, is only one of many signs of a renewed attention to his teachings. Ebn al-'Arabi's first important contact with Persian Islam may have come through one of his teachers, Makin-al-Din Abu Shoja' Zaher b. Rostam Esfahani, whom he met in Mecca in 598/1202 and with whom he studied the Sahih of Termedhi. He speaks especially highly of Makin-al-Din's elderly sister, whom he calls Shaykhat-al-Hejaz ("Mistress of Hejaz", Fakhr-al-Nesa' ("Pride of womankind" bent Rostam, adding that she was also Fakhr-al-Rejal ("Pride of men" and that he had studied Hadith with her. It was Makin-al-Din's daughter, Nezam, who inspired Ebn al-'Arabi to write his famous collection of poetry, Tarjoman al-ashwaq (Nicholson, pp. 3-4; Jahangiri, pp. 59-62). In 602/1205 Ebn al-'Arabi met the well-known Sufi Awhad-al-Din Kermani (d. 635/1238) in Konya and became his close friend; he mentions him on a number of occasions in the Fotuhat (Chodkiewicz et al., pp. 288, 563; Addas, pp. 269-73). Awhad-al-Din's biographer tells us that Ebn al-'Arabi entrusted his stepson Qunawi to Awhad-al-Din for training (Foruzanfar, pp. 86-87), and Qunawi confirms in a letter that he was Kermani's companion for two years, traveling with him as far as Shiraz (Chittick, 1992b, p. 261 ). Qunawi is the most important intermediary through which Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings passed into the Persian-speaking world. He taught Hadith for many years in Konya and was on good terms with Jalal-al-Din Rumi, but there is no evidence in Rumi's works to support the oft-repeated assertion that he was influenced by the ideas of Ebn al-'Arabi or Qunawi (Chittick, forthcoming). Nevertheless, Rumi's commentators typically interpreted him in terms of Ebn al-'Arabi's teachings, which had come to define the Sufi intellectual universe. Qunawi is the author of about fifteen Arabic works, including seven books and a number of relatively short treatises. These works are much more systematic and structured than those of his master. His focus on certain specific issues in Ebn al-'Arabi's writings, such as wojud and the perfect human being (al-ensan al-kamel), helped ensure that these would remain the central concern of the school. Certain terms typically ascribed to Ebn al-'Arabi, such as al-hadarat al-elahiya al-khams, "the five divine presences," seem to be Qunawi's coinages. In al-Fokuk (ed. M. Khúajavi, Tehran, 1371Sh./1992), Qunawi explains the significance of the chapter headings of the Fosus; this work was used directly or indirectly by practically all the Fosus commentators (Chittick, 1984). Qunawi wrote a few minor Persian works, but probably not Tabserat al-mobtadi or Matale'-e iman, both of which have been printed in his name (Chittick, 1992b, pp. 255-59). However, from at least 643/1245 he taught the Ta'iya of Ebn al-Fared in Persian, and his lectures were put together as a systematic commentary on the poem by his student Sa'id-al-Din Fargani (d. 695/1296) as Mashareq al-darari (ed. S. J. Ashtiani, Mashhad, 1398/1978). This work was extremely popular, but even more so was his much expanded Arabic version of the same work, Montaha'l-madarek (Cairo, 1293/1876)........................> http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/ibnarab.html http://members.aol.com/heraklit1/ibnarabi.htm About Ahmad Ibn `Ata'Allah, another sufi leader: Ahmad Ibn `Ata'Allah was a 13th century Sufi Master. In the book cited here, The Key To Salvation: A Sufi Manual of Invocation, Ibn `Ata'Allah discusses the Sufi practice of dhikr at length. The book's Arabic title is Miftah al-Falah wa Misbah al-Arwah, which means The Key to Salvation & the Lamp of Souls. Dying and being reborn (Quotations from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-`Arabi) Indeed as Jalaluddin Rumi also says, each of our eternal individualities is a word, a divine Word, emitted by the Breath of Divine Compassion. When this Word penetrates the mystic's heart... that is, when the "secret of his Lord" unfolds to his consciousness, when divine inspiration invests his heart and soul, "his nature is such that there is born within him a spiritual Child (walad ma`nawi) having the breath of Christ which resuscitates the dead." (p. 172) {One of the most characteristic ways that Ibn `Arabi uses the terms "fana" and "baqa'":} to return to oneself after dying away, to endure after annulment. (p. 212) ... to be in the state of fana... does not signify the annulment or destruction of the Sufi's person but an initial test which is intended to preserve him ever after from false discriminations (e.g. to preserve him from the dogmatic embodiments of the "God created in the faiths". This experience is prerequisite to the authentic discrimination which the mystic will subsequently reintroduce between Creator and Creature (corresponding to the state of baqa', persistence). (p. 227) When the Divine Being is epiphanized to the believer in the form of his faith, this faith is true. He professes this faith in this world. But when the veil is lifted in the other world, the knot (`aqd), that is to say, the dogma (`aqida) which binds him to his particular faith, is untied; dogma gives way to knowledge by direct vision (mushahada). For the man of authentic faith, capable of spiritual vision, this is the beginning of an ascending movement after death. ... in Ibn `Arabi Resurrection must also be taken in the initiatic sense of a new spiritual birth in this world. These "resurrected ones" obtain from God something which previously, before the lifting of the veil of ignorance, they had not seen in the Divine Ipseity, namely, an increasing capacity for acceptance of forms {or manifestations of God} forever new. (pp. 205-206) Being devoted (Quotations from Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-`Arabi) "Neither my Heaven nor my Earth contains me, but the heart of my faithful believer contains me," this because the heart is a mirror in which the manifested "Form of God" is at each moment reflected on the scale of the microcosm. (p. 196) ... the divine Beloved, who defines Himself as admitting of no division, as desiring that the soul should love no one but Him and should love Him for Himself, manifests Himself to the soul, that is, produces Himself for the soul in the physical form of a theophany. And He grants him a sign, which makes it so plain that it is He who is manifesting Himself to the soul in this Form, that the soul cannot possibly deny it... {The soul} recognizes that the Beloved is this physical Form (sensible or mental, identified by the Active Imagination); at once in its spiritual and its physical nature, it is drawn toward that Form. It "sees" its Lord; it is aware of seeing Him in this ecstatic vision that has been bestowed upon its inner faculties, and it can only love Him for Himself: this love is "physical" since it apprehends and contemplates a concrete Image, and at the same time a spiritual love, for it is not concerned with taking possession of the Image, but is itself wholly invested with that Image. This conjunction of spiritual love and the natural love it transmutes, is the very definition of mystic love. (pp. 150-151) Every servant professes a special belief in his Lord, of whom he asks assistance according to the knowledge he has of himself. Thus the faiths differ with the Lords, just as the Lords differ, although all the faiths are forms of the one faith, just as all the Lords are forms in the mirror of the Lord of Lords... God is not limited to the manner in which He is epiphanized for you and makes Himself adequate to your dimension {to receive Him}. And that is why other creatures are under no obligation to obey the God who demands your worship, because their theophanies take other forms. The form in which He is epiphanized to you is different from that in which He is epiphanized to others. God as such transcends (munazzah) all intelligible, imaginable, or sensible forms, but considered in His Names and Attributes, that is, His theophanies, He is, on the contrary, inseparable from these forms, that is, from a certain figure and a certain situs in space and time. (p. 310) The Lord to his devotee: Love me, love me alone. Love yourself in me, in me alone. Attach yourself to me, No one is more inward than I. Others love you for their own sakes, I love you for yourself. And you, you flee from me. Dearly beloved! ... if you approach me, It is because I have approached you. I am nearer to you than yourself, Than your soul, than your breath. Who among creatures Would treat you as I do? I am jealous of you over you, I want you to belong to no other, Not even to yourself. Be mine, be for me as you are in me, Though you are not even aware of it. (pp. 174-5)
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| | Wednesday, April 04, 2001 - 12:32 pm annonymous get a life
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| | Thursday, April 05, 2001 - 08:35 am Baydawi, Ali Muhammad Al-Ghazali Tus, writes Usul al Fiqh completed by 1089 CE Persia. 1058 - 1111 CE. Jurist. Appointed to the coveted Chair of Theology under Nizam al-Mulk in Baghdad Academy. In his latter days adopted a Sufi lifestyle. Approximately 300 works on logic, philosophy, morality, politics and economics. Most renowned work is Ihya Ulum al-Din or the Revival of the Religious Sciences.
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